Kemper laughed. “Jack would say, ‘Where’s the women?’”

o o o

Paez talked a blue streak. Kemper rolled down his window for relief.

They hit Miami at rush hour. Paez kept jabbering. Kemper drummed the dashboard and tried to replay his talk with Stanton.

“…and Mr. Thomas Gordean was my patron at La United. He loved pussy until his fondness for I. W. Harper bonded bourbon inappropriated him. Most of the executives at La United got out after Castro took over, but Mr. Gordean has remained behind. Now, he is drinking even more heavily. He has several thousand shares of United Fruit stock with him, and refuses to leave. He has bought off militiamen to be his private bodyguards and is beginning to sprout the Communist line himself. My great fear is that Mr. Gordean will go Communisto like the Fidel I loved long ago. I fear that he will become a propaganda tool par eccentricity and…”

“Stock shares”-

“Thomas Gordean”-

A light bulb popped on and nearly blinded him. Kemper almost ran his car off the road.

DOCUMENT INSERT: 2/10/59. Hush-Hush stringer report: Lenny Sands to Pete Bondurant.

Pete,

Here’s a lead I’ve picked up. 1.-Mickey Cohen’s diving for crumbs. He’s got two goons (George Piscatelli amp; Sam Lo Cigno) set to maybe work a sex shakedown racket. I got this from Dick Contino, in Chicago for some accordion soiree. Mickey got the idea when he read Lana Turner’s love letters to Johnny Stompanato after Lana’s daughter shanked Johnny. Johnny used to screw rich widows and had some out-of-work cameraman film it. Mickey’s got some choice film clips. Tell Mr. Hughes he’ll sell them for 3 grand.

Cheers,

Lenny

DOCUMENT INSERT: 2/24/59. Hush-Hush stringer report: Lenny Sands to Pete Bondurant.

Pete,

I’ve been on the road with Sal D’Onofrio’s junket gig. Here’s some tidbits. 1.-An the midnight shift cocktail waitresses at the Dunes Hotel in Vegas are hookers. They serviced President Eisenhower’s Secret Service crew when Ike addressed the Nevada State Legislature. 2.-Rock Hudson’s banging the maitre d’ at the Cal-Neva restaurant. 3.-Lenny Brace is hooked on dilaudid. There’s a whole squad of L.A. County Sheriff’s set to entrap him the next time he appear’s on the Strip. 4.-Freddy Otash got Jayne Mansfield an abortion. The daddy was a shvartze dishwasher with a 16” schiong. Peter Lawford’s got pictures of the guy stroking it. I bought one off Freddy 0. I’ll send it to you to forward to Mr. Hughes. 5.-Bing Crosby’s drying out at a Catholic Church retreat for alcoholic priests and nuns outside 29 Palms. Cardinal Speliman visited him there. They went on a bender and drove to L.A. blotto. Spellman sideswiped a oar filled with wetbacks and sent 3 of them to the hospital. Bing bought them off with autographed pictures and a few hundred dollars. Spe]Jman flew back to New York with the DT’s. Bing stayed in L.A. long enough to beat up his wife and then went back to the dry-out farm.

Cheers,

Lenny

DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/4/59. Personal note: J. Edgar Hoover to Howard Hughes.

Dear Howard,

I thought I would drop you a line to tell you how much I think Hush-Hush has improved since Mr. Bondurant hired your new stringer. Now there’s a man who would make an excellent FBI agent! I so look forward to the verbatim reports that you send met Should you wish to expedite their delivery, have Mr. Bondurant contact Special Agent Rice at the Los Angeles Office. Many thanks also for the Stompanato home movie and the snapshot of the prodigiously endowed negro. Forewarned is forearmed: you have to know your enemy before you can combat him.

All best,

Edgar

DOCUMENT INSERT: 3/19/59. Personal letter: Kemper Boyd to J. Edgar Hoover. Marked: EXTREMELY CONFIDENTIAL.

Sir:

Per our previous conversation, I’m passing on salient Kennedy family information gleaned from Laura (Swanson) Hughes.

I’ve gained a degree of Miss Hughes’ confidence in the course of establishing a casual friendship with her. My relationship with the Kennedys gives me credibifity, and Miss Hughes was impressed with the fact that I determined the secret of her parentage without actually broaching the topic to Kennedy family members or her other knowledgeable friends.

Miss Hughes loves to talk about the family, but she only discusses John, Robert, Edward, Rose and the sisters in bland terms. She reserves considerable wrath for Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., cites his ties to Boston mobster Raymond L. S. Patriarca and a retired Chicago “bootlegger-financier” named Jules Schiffrin, and delights in telling stories of Mr. Kennedy’s business rivalry with Howard Hughes. (Miss Hughes adopted the name “Hughes” on her eighteenth birthday, replacing the Kennedy-Swanson proffered “Johnson” in an effort to somehow fluster her father, one of Howard Hughes’ most auspicious enemies.)

Miss Hughes contends that Joseph P. Kennedy’s gangster ties run considerably deeper than the “he was a bootlegger” tag foisted upon him by the press in reference to his highly successful scotch whisky import business preprohibition. She cannot cite specific gangster intimates or recall incidents that she has witnessed or heard of second-hand; nevertheless, her sense of Joseph P. Kennedy as “deeply gangster connected” remains inchoately strong.

I will continue my friendship with Miss Hughes and report all salient Kennedy family intelligence to you.

Respectfully,

Kemper Boyd

DOCUMENT INSERT: 4/21/59. Summary report: SA Ward J. Littell to Kemper Boyd. “For editing and forwarding to Robert F. Kennedy.”

Dear Kemper,

Things continue apace here in Chicago. I’m continuing to pursue domestic Communists per my regular Bureau assignment, although they impress me as more pathetic and less dangerous by the day. That said, I’ll move to our real concerns.

Sal D’Onofrio and Lenny Sands continue, unknown to each other, to serve as my informants. Sal, of course, paid back the $12,000 he owed Sam Giancana; Giancana let him off with a beating. Apparently, my theft of Butch Montrose’s $14,000 was never connected to Sal’s $12,000 windfall. I ordered Sal to repay Giancana in three increments and he followed that order. My initial violence directed at Sal proved to be far-sighted: I seem to have the man thoroughly cowed. In the course of casual conversation I told him that I had been a Jesuit seminarian. D’Onofrio, a selfdescribed “Devout Catholic,” was impressed by this and now considers me something of a father-confessor. He has confessed to six torture-murders, and of course I now have those (gruesomely detailed) confessions to hold over him. Aside from the occasional nightmares the confessions have induced, Sal and I seem to be proceeding on an even keel. I told him I would appreciate it if he would refrain from killing and self-destructive gambling while under my stewardship, and so far he seems to be doing that. Sal has provided me with rather tame pieces of anti-Mob intelligence (not worth forwarding to you or Mr. Kennedy) but has not been of help in steering me toward a loan seeker to hoist up the Teamster Pension Fund ladder. This was the sole reason I suborned him as my informant, and he has failed me in that capacity. I suspect that proving the existence of “alternative” Pension Fund books will be a gruesomely attenuated process.